React Code Review Essentials: A Detailed Checklist for Developers

1. Overview

-README: Ensure the project has a Readme file with instructions on how to run locally and other useful information.

-Error-Free code: Verify that the code runs without errors.
-Functionality: Confirm that the application looks good on mobile devices.
-Responsiveness: Check if the application looks good on mobile devices
-Linting: Verify if the codebase uses eslint.
-.gitignore: Ensure no dist files, editor/IDE files are checked in.

Tip: The Toptal Gitignore generator helps you create customized .gitignore files to exclude unnecessary or sensitive files from being tracked by Git based on your project's technology stack.

2. Testing

• Unit tests: Confirm there are unit tests for crucial parts of the codebase.

3. Naming:

• Consistency: Ensure filenames, variables, functions, and modules have consistent casing and descriptive names.

4. Code quality:

• Code duplication: Look for blocks of code that can refactored to reduce duplication.
• Simplify code: Simplify overly complex code.
• Unused code: Remove unused or unreachable code.
• Commented-out code: Delete commented-out code
• Console Logs: Remove console.log statements unless necessary.
• Comments: Remove unnecessary comments that describe "how" and add comments where needed that describe "why".

5. ES6+ features

• Spread operator: Utilize the spread operator where applicable. -** Destructuring**: use destructuring for arrays and objects.
• Var or Let/Const: Replace var with let or const
• Arrow functions: Use arrow functions consistently.
• Lodash/ES6: Ensure consistency in using lodash, ES6 or older Javascript for data transformation.

6. React Best practices:

• Minimize Render logic: Move logic out of render method into helper methods, container components, or Redux actions.
• Side effects: Move code with side effects( eg. ajax calls) out of render methods.
• Components size: split up larger components to reduce duplication and adhere to the single responsibility principle.
• Destructuring Props: Destructure props in Es6 components.
• Functional components: Use functional components for stateless components
• Immutable Props: Ensure props are not modified within components.

7. Redux:

• State Mutations: Verify the reducers do not mutate the state.

8. Component Design:

• Component size: Keep components small and break them down into child components if necessary.
• JSX size: Ensure JSX markup is no more than 50 lines,
• Function comments - Add comments describing what each function does.
• Linter errors: Ensure code id free of linter errors.
• React warnings: Resolve any react warnings, such and missing key props in array.
• DRY principle: Avoid repeating code, ensure code is reusable.
• Code Pattens: Adhere to existing code patterns and naming conventions
• Usused props: Remove any unused props
• Styling: Prefer using common styling files over inline styles.
• Constants and Enums: Avoid hardcoded values. Use constants and group similar values under Enum.
• Interfaces and Types: Ensure proper use of interfaces and types, Extending them where required.

9. API and Async Handling"

• Service Layer: create a service layer for API calls.
• promises/Async/Await: Use Promises or async/await for asynchronous operations and handle API rejections.
• Avoid infinite call inside loops.
• Exception Handling: Implement proper exception handling and resource cleanup.
• Timers: Unregister timers in clean-up effects if registered during mounting.

10. Additional considerations:

• Image Alt Text: Ensure all images have appropriate alt attributes.
• Git commit messages: Use small and understandable commit messages.
• NPM package: Check for new npm packages and avoid functionality duplicates.
• Imports: Ensure imports to avoid bundling unused library parts.
• Translations: Verify that new text areas are translated if translations are used.
• Typescript: Fix any missing or invalid types, avoid any types unless necessary.
• Boolean naming: Use prefixes like is/are/should for boolean variables.
• Function names: Ensure functions declare their purpose clearly and name them according to their action.
• Hardcoded values: Avoid hardcoded names, paths and values.
• Backward compatibility: Ensure backward compatibility in props and method parameters.
• Form Validation: Check for form validation and proper handling of errors.
• Async Methods: Optimize async methods for parallel execution where possible.

Use this checklist as a guide to review and improve React code ensuring high-quality, maintainable, and performant applications.